Wu Cheng-en - Journey to the West (vol. 1)

As they were arguing they heard loud shouts of “You're drowning me, you're drowning me,” coming from the coffin. The civil officials and the generals were struck with terror; the empresses and consorts shivered. Every one of them had

A face as yellow as a mulberry-leaf after autumn,

A waist as weak as a willow sapling before spring.

The heir went weak at the knees,

As he stood in full mourning, unable to hold up his staff;

The attendants' souls flew away:

How would it do for them to be wearing mourning hats and clothes?

The consorts and concubines collapsed,

The palace beauties had to lie down.

When the consorts and concubines collapsed,

It was like a gale blowing down withered lotuses.

When the palace beauties lay down

It was like a rainstorm beating young lotuses down.

All the ministers were terrified

And their limbs went numb;

They shivered and shook,

Struck dumb and stupid.

The White Tiger Hall was like a bridge collapsing,

And the confusion round the coffin

Was like a temple falling down.

All the palace women fled, as not one of them dared to approach the imperial coffin. Luckily the upright Xu Maogong, the trusty Wei Zheng, the brave Qin Shubao, and the ferocious Yuchi Jingde went forward to put their hands on the coffin and shouted, “What is it that worries Your Majesty and makes you speak to us? Tell us, and do not haunt us and scare the royal family.”

“His Majesty is not haunting us,” Wei Zheng said. “His Majesty has come back to life. Bring tools at once.” They opened the coffin and found Taizong sitting up inside and still shouting, “You're drowning me. Save me, someone.” Xu Maogong and the others helped him to his feet and said, “There is nothing to fear as you come round, Your Majesty. We are all here to protect you.” The Tang Emperor then opened his eyes and said, “We have been having an awful time: after escaping from the evil demons of the underworld, we were drowned.”

“Relax, Your Majesty, there is nothing to fear. How could you have drowned?” the ministers said. “We were riding along the banks of the River Wei and watching to fishes playing when that deceitful Marshal Zhu pushed us off the horse and made us fall into the river, where we all but drowned.”

“Your Majesty still has something of the ghost about you,” said Wei Zheng, and he ordered the Imperial Medical Academy to send medicinal potions to settle the spirit and calm the soul at once; he also sent for some thin gruel. After one or two doses of the medicine the Emperor returned to normal and regained full consciousness. The Tang Emperor had been dead for three days and nights before returning to rule the world of the living once more. There is a poem to prove it:

Since ancient times there have been changes of power;

Dynasties have always waxed and waned.

What deed of the kings of old could compare

With the Emperor of Tang returning to life?

As it was evening by then the ministers asked the Emperor to go to bed, and they all dispersed.

The next day they all took off their mourning garments and put colorful clothes back on. Wearing red robes and black hats, and with their golden seals of office hanging from purple ribbons at their waists, they stood outside the gates of the court awaiting the summons. As for Taizong, after taking the medicine to settle his spirit and calm his soul and drinking some thin gruel he was helped to his bedroom by his ministers. He slept soundly all night, building up his energies, and at dawn he rose. See how he was arrayed as he summoned up his authority:

On his head a hat that thrust into the sky;

On his body a dark yellow robe

Girt with a belt of Lantian jade;

On his feet a pair of Shoes of Success.

The dignity of his bearing

Surpasses all others at court.

His awesome majesty

Is today restored.

What a peaceful and wise Great Tang Emperor,

The king named Li who can die and rise again.

The Tang Emperor entered the throne hall, and when the two groups of civil and military officials had finished acclaiming him they divided into sections according to their ranks. When they heard the decree, “Let all those with business step forward from their sections and submit memorials, and let those with no business retire,” Xu Maogong, Wei Zheng, Wang Gui, Du Ruhui, Fang Xuanling, Yuan Tiangang, Li Chunfeng, Xu Jingzong and others stepped forward on the Eastern side; and on the Western side Yin Kaishan, Liu Hongji, Ma Sanbao, Duan Zhixian, Cheng Yaojin, Qin Shubao, Yuchi Jingde, Xue Rengui and others stepped forward also.

They advanced together, bowed low before the white jade steps, and asked in a memorial, “Why did it take Your Majesty so long to awake from your dream the other day?”

To this Taizong replied, “The other day we took Wei Zheng's letter and felt our soul leaving the palace. The horsemen of the Imperial Guard asked us to go hunting with them, and as we were going along the men and their horses all vanished. His Late Majesty and our dead brothers appeared and started to shout at us in a quarrelsome way. Things were getting very awkward when we saw a man in a black hat and gown who turned out to be the judge Cui Jue. When he had shouted at my dead brothers and driven them away we gave him Wei Zheng's letter. As he was reading it some servants in black holding banners led us in and took us to the Senluo Palace, where the Ten Kings of Hell were all sitting. They said that the dragon of the River Jing had falsely accused us of deliberately killing him after we had promised to save him, so we gave them a full account of what we told you about before. They said that the case had now been settled between the three orders, and ordered that the Registers of Birth and Death be brought at once so that they could see how long we were due to live. Judge Cui handed up the register, and they saw in it that we were due to reign for thirty-three years, which meant that we had another twenty years of life in front of us. They told Marshal Zhu and Judge Cui to escort us back. We took our leave of the Ten Kings and promised to send them some pumpkins and fruit as a mark of our thanks. After leaving the Senluo Palace we saw in the underworld how the disloyal, the unfilial, those who do not observe the rules of propriety, wasters of foodgrains, bullies, cheats, those who use false measures, adulterers, robbers, hypocrites, deceivers, debauchees, swindlers and the like undergo the agonies of being ground, burnt, pounded and sliced, and suffer the torments of being fried, boiled, hung in mid-air, and skinned. There were tens of thousands of them, far more than our eyes could take in. Then we went through the City of the Unjustly Slain where there were countless ghosts of the wrongly killed, and all of them, the chieftains of the sixty-four groups of rebels and the spirits of the seventy-two bands of rebels, blocking our way. Luckily Judge Cui acted as our guarantor and lent us one of the hoards of gold and silver of a Mr. Xiang of Henan, with which we were able to buy them off and continue on our way. Judge Cui told us that when we returned to the world of the living we had an inescapable obligation to hold a Great Mass to enable all those forlorn ghosts to be reborn, and with these instructions he took his leave. When I came out under the Wheel of the Six Paths of Being Marshal Zhu invited us to mount a horse. This horse seemed to fly to the banks of the River Wei, where I saw a pair of fish sporting in the water. Just as we were enjoying this sight the marshal grabbed our legs and tipped us into the water, and with that we returned to life.”

When the ministers had heard this they all congratulated him and they compiled a record of it; and all the prefectures and counties of the empire sent in memorials of felicitation.